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Keep the tin foil close by.....or prepare to get a scientific "jolt" out of the blue. Here is the entire story from the African Independent Paper with a Reuters byline:

" Luminous arc lights up scientists' lives

January 24 2003 at 06:41AM

Cape Canaveral - Astronauts videotaping thunderstorms from the space shuttle Columbia captured what scientists said on Thursday was a never-before-seen red glowing arc of light running parallel to the curve of the Earth.

"Two nights ago over Africa was an extraordinary image. We saw a huge horizontal line of air glow which has been brightened by lightning below it. It extended to several hundred kilometres horizontally and we feel it may be something new," said Dr Yoav Yair.

Yair, project co-ordinator for Israeli experiments on board the shuttle during its current mission, said analysis would attempt to confirm scientists' initial impression that the glow is neither a "sprite" nor an "elf" - two other electrical phenomena associated with thunderstorms.

"It is raw data hot from the oven," Yair said. "It's a grainy and noisy image but for scientists it's a treasure trove. That's what we like."

'It is raw data hot from the oven'
Scientists were excited by the news that astronauts on Sunday captured the first-ever pictures of "elves" taken from space with a calibrated camera. The shuttle and its seven-member crew, which includes Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, are on a 16-day science mission that began on January 16.

The study of luminosities associated with thunderstorms is part of what Yair described as a new discipline in the field of upper atmospheric physics. "Sprites" - red flashes shooting up from thunderstorms - were discovered only as recently as 1989, followed by "elves" - spreading red doughnut shapes - in 1994.

The latest luminosity, Yair said, was a narrow limb-like glow, hundreds of kilometres long, red in colour and probably made of nitrogen. Yair said the band was especially bright.

"It seems that the atmosphere still holds surprises for us," Yair said.

Yair said scientists studying these electrical discharges were looking to further basic scientific knowledge rather than develop new products.
'It seems that the atmosphere still holds surprises for us'
"But if you understand the global electrical circuit, and if you want to fly certain high-flying aircraft through this layer of atmosphere, then you have to know really well what's going on up there in terms of electricity," Yair said."

Look, this is truly weird, but when you add the Columbia crew patch to the story (note the red arc)....you have a story almost too odd for even Art Bell....